


Things You Said

by kateyes224



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, things you said meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:58:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7602487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateyes224/pseuds/kateyes224
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These chapters are based on prompts I received from the Things You Said prompt list that was circulating awhile back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_**Things you said when you met my parents.** _

When Mulder saw her trying to elbow her way past a uniformed officer, staring horrified over the man’s shoulder at the dusting and lifting of prints and the tagging and collection of evidence, he knew. This wasn’t just the face of a curious civilian completely unused to seeing how many CSIs and police personnel it took to tear apart a crime scene, interview and obtain statements from possible witnesses, make sense of a tragedy. This was her tragedy.

Her voice was suddenly louder, raising angrily above the chaotic din in Scully’s living room. “But this is my daughter’s apartment. Let me go, I have to get through. I have to get in!”

“Mrs. Scully?”

Mulder’s heart seized in his chest when she met his gaze as he strode purposefully across the room towards her. Her eyes weren’t the same impossible Caribbean blue as her daughter’s, they were greener, like the Pacific after a storm blows through. But they were the same shape, wide, wet, and fringed with the same long, dark lashes. Same determined set of her mouth. His brain quickly filled in a few useless gaps. She was brunette, her hair falling in long dark waves around her face, so Captain Scully must have been the redhead. She was even more petite than his tiny partner (no, not his partner anymore, he thought bitterly, though that still didn’t absolve him), but the way she held her head high, shrugging off the hand of the officer holding her back, he knew immediately where Scully’s ferocious strength had come from. Raising four children with a husband that was out at sea more often than not would do that to a woman. Lionize her.

He placed a hand on her slim shoulder, as much to steady himself by trying to connect to Scully somehow as to provide a source of physical comfort to her mother. She shrank back from him slightly when she noticed the blood drying near his rumpled coat sleeve. Christ, he hadn’t even realized he’d gotten blood on his hands. He had stumbled around her apartment so dazed by the abrupt loss of her, her frightened cries for help and the deafening sound of shattering glass still ringing in his ears, that he found he didn’t really care that he was contaminating the crime scene.

“She’s not in there.”

Her brow furrowed the same way Scully’s did as she searched his face, the look at once so familiar, so very Scully, that he wanted to cry. Her mother must have seen something she trusted in his blank, shell-shocked eyes, because she shifted closer to him despite her daughter’s blood on his hands.

“Where is she?”

He looked down at his feet, shame burning through him, and suddenly he felt twelve years old again, answering the same shouted questions his parents had angrily volleyed at him as tears had streamed down his face. Not again, he thought. Not another mother he’d disappointed by failing to protect her daughter.

“Where is she?” Mrs. Scully’s voice was more forceful this time, but not unkind.

He shrugged helplessly. He didn’t have an answer then. He doesn’t now.

+++

“You must be Fox Mulder…you were Dana’s partner.”

He nodded miserably. “Yes, ma’am.” _I’m the useless son of a bitch who wasn’t here for your daughter when she needed my help_.

“She told me about you.”

He raised his eyes to meet hers. “What?”

“Dana. She said you’re an entitled, impulsive, brilliant pain in the butt.”

He wanted to laugh. Couldn’t.

“She also said that she trusts you. Likes you, even. She’s been worried about you, though.”

His heart constricted. Of course she had been. He’d been even more unhinged than usual lately, ever since they’d shut down the X-Files and hauled her back to Quantico. He squeezed his eyes shut against the barrage of recent memories that flashed through his head.

Trying not to notice the way her profile looked in the low light of the Longstreet Motel room during a wiretap, feeling her warm, sure hand taking his own. _I still have my work. And I still have you._

Sitting in his car during a stakeout, losing himself in her eyes before she pulls a root beer out of a brown paper bag, not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed that it wasn’t an iced tea. _I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anybody but you._

Settling comfortably next to her on what he’d come to think of as their bench on the Mall, siphoning warmth from her body as they slip back into the easy back-and-forth of their tête-à-têtes. _They don’t want us working together, Scully… and right now, that’s the only reason I can think of to stay._

Dialing her number by heart just to get her take on a case, telling himself it’s not just because he wants to hear her voice. _I’m surprised I put up with you for so long._

“She’s been the only thing keeping me sane these days.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it, but the awful truth of it made the sudden absence of her that much more catastrophic, like a black hole had opened up in his chest and he was collapsing in on himself. His vision blurred as he traced the rusty pattern of her blood on the back of his hand.

“She needs you just as much as you need her.”

He looked up when her hand, soft and dry and comforting, covered his own, stilling his movements. Grounded him. Her resolute expression sent a shock of hope through him, and he was grateful for the first time that night to have her there. As she had so many times before, Margaret Scully had steeled herself, preparing to weather the storm, and was placing her faith in him to bring her daughter back to her. She was giving him a mission, a purpose.

He hoped to God he wouldn’t let her down.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Things you said when you were scared._ **

It took three days, but she finally stopped hanging up as soon as she heard my voice.  Something was wrong, I could hear it in the crushing silence on the other end of the line before a =click= signaled that the call was dead and I was left staring at the receiver, dumbfounded, growing angrier by the second at the interminable drone of the dial tone.  Naturally, I’d had dispatch trace the calls as soon as they’d started coming in, but it had only confirmed what I already knew. Our psychic connection is nothing if not reliable.  Not even the phone company could sever it.

When had she ever not had words for me? There were times when I was convinced that she would never shut up, when her endless encyclopedic recitations of facts and studies were kind of a turn-on, but now I was finding myself desperate to hear just one or two syllables from her, to know at least that she was alright, even if she was refusing to tell me what the hell was going on.  I had to remind myself that when it came to her personal life, to the unknowable secret heart of Dana Scully, she was less than forthcoming.  That she was even dialing my number in the first place should have been a kind of comfort. But when it comes to her, I’m unabashedly selfish, and I’ve always wanted more than she was willing to give me.

If I’d learned anything about my partner over the last five years, it was that she would tell me something when she thought I was ready to hear it, not when she needed to unburden herself.  She was funny like that.  Her unerring instincts for saving me from myself were really the only reason I hadn’t just jumped on the first flight out to San Diego the first time she’d hung up on me, Bill Junior and whatever he might think of what that said about our relationship be damned. For once in my life, I decided to be prudent.  I was kind of proud of myself, to be honest, that I was giving her her space.  Even if my fingers were actually itching to dial her number as soon as she hung up on me. She’d only been gone a couple of days, I reasoned.  What could she possibly have to tell me that couldn’t wait until she was ready?

“Mulder, it’s me.”

“Hey, Scully, Merry Christmas.  Nice of you to finally let me pick up the phone.” I knew that passive-aggressive probably wasn’t the best tone to be using after she’d been so damn skittish, but I was pissed.  She was lucky I hadn’t decided to hang up on =her= this time.

“I’m sorry.  The last couple of days have been…uhh…”  Uh oh.  Her voice was wavering by the time she trailed off.  This was serious.  

“What, is it your mom?  Are Tara and the baby alright?  I remember you saying she was due any day now…”

“No, no.  Nothing like that, Mom’s fine, Tara’s fine, she’s ready to pop.”

I nodded though she couldn’t see it, letting her find the words she seemed to be searching for.

“Uhm…I need you to come out here.”

“You need me to fly out to San Diego?”

“Yes.  As soon as possible.  I’ve already checked, there’s a flight leaving Dulles in an hour and a half.”

My heart was thudding wildly in my chest now, and I started throwing clothes in my carry-on.  “Scully, you need to tell me what’s going on.  Are you alright?  Is it the cancer?…”  Please, God, not the cancer again.  I’d just gotten her back.

“I’m fine, Mulder.”

I almost threw my phone against the wall. Instead, I chewed on my lower lip, closed my eyes, counted to five, and tried again.

“Okay, Scully, I know your standard operating procedure is to tell me that you’re fine, but you’re scaring the shit out of me right now.  You’ve been calling me at all hours only to hang up, then when I finally do get ahold of you, you’re telling me you need me on the first flight out there but you won’t tell me why.  Now, I’m never going to say no to a little wintertime jaunt out to San Diego, to be honest I’m pretty damn sick of snow and I’d love to be out there with my toes in the sand, but you really need to tell me what the hell is going on, because I’m starting to get really worried over here, Scully, and-”  

“I have a daughter, Mulder.”

I froze, my toiletry bag dropping to the ground. Shaving cream, my razor, and half a dozen Tylenol PMs spilled out onto the floor.

“Uhh…I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“Her name is Emily.  I’m still trying to figure out how she’s here and how she’s mine, but I got the DNA results back yesterday.  There’s absolutely no doubt that this little girl is my biological daughter.”

Black spots started swimming before my eyes, and I realized dimly that I was hyperventilating.  Scully had a daughter.  What the fuck?  A daughter. When? How?  My brain was no longer processing complex information.  It was just a string of expletives and question marks.  And deeper, a niggling, awful numbness had started taking root in the back of my head.  Scully had a child. Scully was a mother.  

“Her parents are both dead, under extremely suspect circumstances.  She’s become a ward of the state, Mulder.  She has no one to take care of her.”

Oh, God.

I was going to lose her.

“Mulder?  Are you still there?”

Always, Scully.

“Yeah, yeah…I’m here.  Sorry, I’m just…I’m kind of in shock here, Scully.”

She took a deep breath, laughed a little. It wasn’t a happy sound.

“You and me both.  I, uh…I need your help trying to get to the bottom of this, Mulder.  And…”  I heard her foot scuffing the floor wherever she was. Nervous. She was nervous.  “And I’d really like for you to meet her, Mulder.”

Her.  Emily.  Scully’s daughter.  

Oh, God.

“I’ve just gotta finish packing and I’ll be out of here.”

She let out a quiet sigh of relief.  

“Thank you.”

Always, Scully.  “I’ll call you when I get there and get a car rented.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She hung up on me again, but this time, I let the dial tone go until the operator’s mechanical voice told me that if I’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again.

Emily.  I spent the entirety of the five-hour flight wondering what she’d look like, and if the moment I saw her face would be the moment I’d finally be able to find it in myself to stop being selfish.  


	3. Chapter 3

**_Things you said in the spur of the moment._ **

They’d been desperately trying to act as though the seismic shift in their relationship hadn’t changed anything, and they were left clinging to one another in the same familiar rhythms and steps of their years-long dance around one another only to find that the pace had suddenly shifted. The waltz they’d been so comfortable with for so long was abruptly thrown off-kilter, the metronome moving briskly along at the tempo now of a paso dobles, and while they didn’t exactly stumble trying to regain their balance, they certainly weren’t as sure-footed as they had been.  

They’d been acting as though showing up at one another’s apartments on Friday nights with the other’s favorite takeout, a six-pack of microbrew, and a Blockbuster rental (and nary the convenient excuse of a casefile in sight) had always been totally normal.  As if she had always grinned up at him and giggled at his stupid jokes instead of pursing her lips and rolling her eyes.  That his hand had always crept its way up her knee to her thigh twenty minutes into the movie, and her fingers had always traced delicate, swirly patterns on the back of his hand before finally interlacing his long, tanned fingers with her own. Mulder pretended to be blissfully unaware that her sharp edges were softening after hours, that he’d occasionally glimpse the pastel lace edge of her bra peeking out from underneath her sweater when she reached over him for a napkin or some soy sauce. That there hadn’t been a time when she would pick up the remote halfway through a movie, turn the TV off, instantly dousing the room in darkness and silence and the muted neon glow of his fish tank, and amble (when had she _ever_ ambled?) catlike down the hall to his bedroom, casting a half-cocked eyebrow at him over her shoulder while she shed her clothes, leaving a trail for him to follow, and slithered naked between his sheets. 

Nope, move along, folks.  Nothing different between us.  Nothing to see here.  

It had been three months since he’d first flattened an imprint of her tiny body into his couch, adding the smell of her to the seasoned richness of the leather. Sometimes he still had to mentally pinch himself when he found himself on top of her, her back arching beneath him as he thrust into her over and over again, her breath hitching when he tongued the sensitive pulse point behind her right ear.  

_Jackpot_ , he would find himself thinking as her arms coiled around his neck and her legs tightened around his back.

No, their transition from partners to lovers, seamless though it may have appeared from the outside, was not without its hiccups.

His cell phone rang after midnight the second week he was kissing her for all she was worth, naked from the waist up in his bed.  She’d handed his phone to him with a wry, wicked grin when “Destiny” had huffily asked her if “Frank” was available, and he’d tried not to appear too pleasantly surprised when she slid down his body while his ear was still pressed to the phone, the button fly on his jeans made quick work of and her tongue twirling deliciously around the length of him.  

He’d had to endure a lead investigator on a recent case leaning into her personal space to impart whispered knowledge to her ears only, his jaw clenching as he watched the detective’s hand find its way to the small of her back to lead her out the double doors of the precinct to a waiting black and white.  Her eyes had found his in the rear view mirror, and her tight-lipped apologetic smile had soothed him somewhat, but he was reminded suddenly, brazenly, that she was a beautiful, desirable woman.  

After spending several anxious hours in his room that night, not watching the basketball game while he listened for Detective Ass Clown to drop Scully off after giving her a ride back to the motel from the morgue, he’d knocked insistently and attacked her as soon as she’d opened the door, hastily stripping her of her FBI-Agent-Medical-Doctor-Scully armor to remind himself that he knew her, too, perhaps better than anyone on the planet, as Dana, as Dr. Scully, as Special Agent Scully, as just plain Scully.  That she willingly bared herself to him and no other.

He was still catching his breath, sweat still evaporating from their skin, when he said something he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t regret once morning came.

“You know that you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved…I mean…really, truly loved…don’t you, Scully?” 

He swallowed hard in the darkness of their motel room.

“Dana, I-”

“Mulder, shut up.”

He pushed himself up onto an elbow and stared down at her.  

“Scully, you have to know by now, don’t you?  How much you mean to me?”

Her eyes glowed an unearthly azure in the dim, orange light filtering in from the motel parking lot.

“I’ve always known.”

They smiled at one another, in tandem. 

“Probably even before you did.”

His grin widened and he lowered his head to kiss her, his tongue meeting hers as her legs twined themselves around his.  Before long, he can’t tell where he ends and she begins.  

They find their rhythm again that night.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Things you said while I cried in your arms.** _

The world outside is starting to come awake, the sky turning from the deep blue-purple of a bruise to the sad lavender-gray of dawn. Car engines are turning over sleepily, doors opening and closing above her apartment and down the hall. She’s sitting on her bed in much the same position she was in when he first came to see his child a few short days ago, only this time her arms are empty, crossed tightly over her engorged breasts. William coos and sucks his fist in the bassinet in the corner. Her eyes are already glassing over, wet with angry, unshed tears. She can’t quite find it in her heart to hate him. She wants to.

He’s standing sentry over his son, watching him, drinking him in, but not touching him. His back is to her, his hands braced on either side of the cradle.

“It takes fourteen days for a baby to recognize his father’s voice,” she says, but she doesn’t know why she says it. Her voice cracks on the word ‘father.’

His shoulders slump even further, and she can hear him taking shaky, shallow breaths.

“Don’t.”

Her face crumples, and a sob escapes. Somewhere outside, she hears the echo of children laughing, the hiss and groan of the school bus’s brakes stopping a block away.

“Please don’t, Scully. That’s not fair.”

Fair. She would laugh if she weren’t sure that her heart was actually breaking. Equity has never been part of their equation.

“Will you try to call?” He sighs. “Write? Email? Smoke signal? Carrier pigeon?”

A bitter chuff of laughter at that. A moment of silence. The longer it takes for him to answer her, the heavier the air between them grows. It feels like the weight of it is closing in on her, pressing against her chest, making it impossible to breathe. Conversely, the walls of her bedroom continue to lighten. If she prays hard enough, can she make nine minutes disappear again? Get lost in this moment forever? This moment that seems to hang forever in the realm of possibility, where he may say yes, he may say he’ll stay, he may wrap her up in his arms and promise never to let go?

“No.”

The cracks and fissures that have been forming in her psyche start to give. Time isn’t going to stop for them today.

She nods at his back, even though he can’t see her. Looks away, out the window.

“So this is it, then.”

He turns at that. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to have her smooth, impossibly fearless mask on for him when his eyes finally met hers. This could be the last time, after all, that they search each other’s faces for answers to questions neither has had the courage to ask. She wants him to remember her as she was. Proud, haughty, chin up, ready to take whatever the world had to throw at her. But today…today she can’t seem to find that self. Not when the baby is starting to stir, not when his bags are packed and sitting by the door, not when the towel he’d used after his shower is still drying on the rack. Her eyes are bottomless when they’re wet, she knows. He told her that once. He’d said he felt like he was drowning when she cried.

He shakes his head at the sight of her, takes the three steps across the room to where she sits on the bed, grabs blindly at her hand, pulls her up to stand. He hugs her tightly to his chest, so tightly that her milk-heavy breasts scream in agony. She doesn’t protest.

“Never, Scully,” he murmurs into her hair, cradling her head with one hand. “Never. There is no ‘it’ for us. Death couldn’t keep us apart.” He bends to find her eyes, hold her gaze, his thumbs brushing away unbidden tears.

“I’m walking away today with two thirds of my life missing.”

Two thirds. It’s not just the two of them anymore.

She allows the sobs and the tears to pour out now, and the salt of their lips tastes like a promise. She lets herself drown in him one last time, dragged down in an undertow of time that won’t cooperate for her today. _Time is a universal invariant_ , her mind whispers, as she grips his sides, clutching him to her like he might be able to save her.

She’ll be strong tomorrow.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Things you said at 4 a.m._ **

His cell phone’s sharp trill hasn’t even completed its first ring before he’s snatched it off the coffee table.  He glances at the VCR, knowing before his thumb has hit the “Send” button who’s calling.  There’s only one person he’d expect to hear from at 4:06 a.m.  There’s also no one else he’d pick up the phone for at 4:06 a.m.  He tries hard not to think about what it means that those two thoughts are linked inexplicably around the idea of her.

“Hey,” he says, in lieu of greeting, his voice gravelly and bruised.  One word, and he’s already conveyed an entire conversation.   _“Hello?”  “I know it’s you.”  “How are you?”  “I’m here.”  “What is it?”  “Is it something I can help with?”  “Let me help you.”_  

_I love you,_  also flashes briefly like the retinal afterimage of a show of fireworks in his consciousness, unconsciousness, subconsciousness, whatever level of his being has admitted to himself that he can’t live without her, but he quickly snuffs it out. 

“I didn’t wake you, did I?”

He smiles halfheartedly, his gaze blurring as he watches his fish meandering in lazy circles around the tank.  

“Nah.  I’ve been catching up on the Star Trek marathon on SciFi.”

Silence.

He swallows past the lump in his throat.  He’s still not quite used to having her back at his beck and call, and he’s been cautious not to overstep whatever boundaries he imagines he should have respected when she was first assigned to him.  He doesn’t call her after five anymore, and he certainly doesn’t call her on weekends.  He walks her to her car every evening, much to her consternation.  He ignores her pursed lips, handing her briefcase into the passenger side of her car and closing the door with a wry grin and a nearly imperceptible shrug and she lowers herself into the driver’s seat and starts the car.  She tolerates it.  She knows he’s trying to atone.  She would, however, have him shot if she ever found out that he has also been following her home every night, sometimes watching her from the parking lot outside the grocery store or down the block from the pharmacy as she runs the errands that have somehow become a touch less mundane, a bit more sacred in their everyday necessity…another indicator that she is indeed alive, and will remain among the living, at least for now.  He’s also been checking in with Maggie once a week, just to make sure she’s on the road to recovery, if not to redemption, although he has no idea if Maggie has shared this tidbit with her youngest daughter.  His phone calls with Mrs. Scully are always brief, but heartfelt…He and Maggie are kindred spirits now, bonded in the life-altering, albeit thankfully temporary, loss of Dana Katherine Scully. 

“Channel?”

Her voice jolts him out of his reverie.  “47.”

A soft hum of acknowledgment and suddenly he doesn’t care about pretense anymore.  He needs to tell her, before he loses his resolve.  Instead, he says:

“This is a great episode.  Spock goes mad after experiencing a Medusan’s outwardly physical appearance, and actually ends up falling in love with this telepath’s assistant-”

“Mulder, why have you been following me home every night?”

_Shit._

He takes a shaky breath.

“Uhmm…”  He prays silently for her to berate him for treating her like an inferior.  For her to scream at him that she’s just as capable as he is, even if she does have a vagina.  That she carries a Bureau-issued weapon on her person at all times, for God’s sake.  

Silence.

She’s allowing him to hang.  He feels the noose tighten.

Gulp.  “Scully…”

“Mulder, I will not allow you to blame yourself for this.”

He squeezes his eyes shut.

“I am _not_ your sister.  This is not your fault.  Duane Barry took me, and who knows what was done to me, but I’m here.  I’m back.  I’m a grown woman, and an FBI agent.  I am your partner.  I will not be able to do my job if I feel like you are constantly having to protect me.  I might as well just resign if you’re going to play the Lancelot to my Guenivere.  I am _not_ a damsel in distress. Something terrible happened to me, but it was not because you failed to protect me.  Do you understand?”

On their television screens, Leonard Nimoy’s Spock listens as Dr. Miranda Jones reveals how she is able to look upon a Medusan and not go mad…it’s because she is blind, and therefore able to remain sane while others would look on the telepathic species and go insane.  The parallel is not lost on Mulder.

He swallows hard and unclenches his jaw.  He allows the images before him to blur but keeps his focus on the steady sound of her breathing in and out on the other end of the line.  In and out.  In…and out.  Minutes pass.  She’s still there.

“Okay.”

A sharp exhalation of what sounds suspiciously like relief, and suddenly he knows he hasn’t been the only one dreading this inevitable conversation.  He realizes that he’s not given her nearly enough credit, and wonders how long she’s been indulgently eyeing his sedan in her rearview mirror as she drives home.

“And Mulder?”

“Yeah, Scully.”

“Next time you follow me home, you could at least pick up dinner from Sichuan Palace and watch the game with me.”

She hits the end button before he has time to realize that he’s already smiling.

It’s the first time he’s genuinely smiled in months.


End file.
